What Java Modules Are About
When the subject of Java modules comes up in online discussions every so often, I get the sense that many people misunderstand what it is that modules are supposed to do. That's understandable, as the name 'modules' does not evoke the precise purpose of the feature. There are many kinds of modules, even in the Java…
Mea culpa: How developers fix their own simple bugs differently from other devs
This paper from Zhu and Godfrey looks at single-statement bug fixes in Java code: more specifically, at the differences between how bug are fixed by the people who created them and how they are fixed by other people. The authors found that people fix their own bugs more quickly than other people's, which falls under…
Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.
5 Important Things to Do Before the Market Bubble Bursts
Yes, you are living through a bubble in the financial markets. No, this is not an article about how to time the market. No, you don’t know when the bubble will burst (and neither do I). Yes, there are still things that you can do that will set you up for investing success.
Copy-protection for vinyl in the 1970s (2008)
When I was thinking about an iconography for DRM, I began to think back to the old days of recording vinyl onto my portable tape deck using a 5-pin DIN plug to connect the two machines, the advent of tape-to-tape decks, and being poised over the pause button to record tracks from John Peel sessions. It was all so…
Rare Greek Variables
I scrape Arxiv to find underused Greek variables which can add some diversity to math; the top 10 underused letters are ϰ, ς, υ, ϖ, Υ, Ξ, ι, ϱ, ϑ, & Π. Avoid overused letters like λ, and spice up your next paper with some memorable variables!
Talking to Postgres Through Java 16 Unix-Domain Socket Channels
Reading a blog post about what’s coming up in JDK 16 recently, I learned that one of the new features is support for Unix domain sockets (JEP 380). Before Java 16, you’d have to resort to 3rd party …
Crony Beliefs
[Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent podcast Second Enumerations . —Ed. ]
The Curious Case of IKEA Vocabulary
Part of what makes IKEA unique is their product names. Each name means something, often in a funny or ambigious way. When IKEA went international, they decided to use the same Swedish names everywhere. This makes sense from an organizational sanity standpoint, but it deprives most of the world of this particular joy.
Japanese Typewriters
September 30, 2009 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Japanese History , Japanese Technology
Full cycle developers – Operate what you build (2018)
Operating what you build, empowered with amazing developer tools
Netflix and Spotify on a Raspberry Pi 4 with Chromium and Widevine
As of 3-30-2020, if you want the “paste-one-line-it-just-works” go to: vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/raspberry-pi-netflix-one-line-easy-install-along-with-hulu-amazon-prime-disney-plus-hbo-spotify-pandora-and-many-others/ ^^^ Please use the post linked above for my “one-line it just works” install ^^^ (Ignore everything…
A forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast (2015)
Although the name 'New England' is now firmly associated with the east coast of America, this is not the first place to be called that. In t...
What every IT person needs to know about OpenBSD Part 3: That packet filter
Useful and fun features related to the OpenBSD packet filter.
Scientific notation bug in MySQL left AWS WAF vulnerable to SQL injection
We provide around-the-clock threat detection and incident response, backed by expert consulting to keep your organization secure.
Heroku-style deployments with Docker and Git tags
In this post I want to explain a new deployment method I came up with while working on drwn.io. I wanted it to meet a few requirements: Simple Based on git tags Zero-downtime Easy rollbacks Creating …
Why do database columns have a character length of 191?
`varchar(191)` is such an odd number - how did we get here?
The Weirdness of Kentucky Route Zero (2016)
In my last post , I took issue with the TV show Mr. Robot for not being weird enough. Although imaginative and compelling, its universe is well-ordered: everything happens for a reason.
Debugging in Clojure
A guide to debugging in Clojure, using the REPL
Donating Docker Distribution to the CNCF
Docker has contributed Docker Distribution to the CNCF. This move will ensure Docker Distribution has a broad group maintaining what is the foundation for many registries.
Legendary F1 team boss Sir Frank Williams dies, aged 79
Sir Frank Williams – the longest-serving Team Principal Formula 1 has ever seen – has died at the age of 79.
Peeking through logs
I was reading an interesting and educational blog post , about the writer's home infrastructure status. I was curious about it, because it mentioned syslog-ng, a project I used to be heavily involved with, and a project that's still dear to my heart, even though I'm neither involved, nor am I using it any longer. It…
Status, Wealth, & Power: Network Effects Demand a New Social Contract
We are the ones creating these massive network effect businesses. So it's up to us to write new social contracts for the people who use them.
New research highlights the damage caused by processed food
A landmark paper proves that obesity is not just energy in and out; the type of food matters. And while one study shows we’re eating more processed food, another reveals what can be gained if we clean up our act.
Re-thinking electronic mail
There are many problems with the existing Internet email system, such as spam, scam, surveillance, insecurity, centralization, and complexity. The problems are starting to outweigh the benefits of the system. Fixing the problems by evolving the current system seems overwhelmingly difficult. This essay examines some…